“Says she was a governess in the country, my dear.” “Oh, yus, I dare say. Came out of a slop shop in the Mile End Road though, and learned 'er steps with the organ man in the court a-back of the jam factory.” “Well, I never! She's a wide un, she is!” “About as wide as Broad Street, my dear. Use ter sell flowers in Piccadilly Circus till somebody spoke to 'er, and now she rides 'er brougham, doncher know.” Then the laughter would be general, and the girls would go off with their arms about each other's waists, and singing, in the street substitute for the stage whisper, “And 'er golden 'air was 'anging dahn 'er back!” This yellow-haired and yellow-fingered sisterhood saw the game of life pretty clearly, and it did not take them long to get abreast of Glory. “Like this life, my dear?” “Go on! Do she look as if she liked it?” “Perhaps I do, perhaps I don't,” said Glory. “Tell that to the marines, my dear. I use ter be in a shop myself, but I couldn't a-bear it. Give me my liberty, I say; and if a girl's got any sort o' figure----Unnerstand, my dear?” Late that night one of the girls came in breathless and cried: “Hooraa! What d'ye think? Betty wants a dresser, and I've got the shop for ye, my dear. Guinea a week and the pickings; and you go tomorrow night on trial. By-bye!” Glory's old infirmity came back upon her, and she felt hot and humiliated. But her vanity was not so much wounded by the work that she was offered as her honour was hurt by the work she was doing. Mrs. Jupe's absences from home were now more frequent than ever. If the business that took her abroad was akin to that which had taken her to Polly Love---- To put an end to her uneasiness, Glory presented herself at the stage door. “You the noo dresser, miss?” said the doorkeeper. “Collins has orders to look after you.--Collins!” A scraggy, ugly, untidy woman who was passing--through an inner door looked back and listened. “Come along of me then,” she said, and Glory followed her, first down a dark passage, then through a dusty avenue between stacks of scenery, then across the open stage, up a flight of stairs, and into a room of moderate size which had no window and no ventilation and contained three cheval glasses, a couch, four cane-bottom chairs, three small toilet tables with gas jets suspended over them, three large trunks, some boxes of cigarettes, and a number of empty champagne bottles. Here there was another woman as scraggy and untidy as the first, who bobbed her head at Glory and then went on with her work, which was that of taking gorgeous dresses out of one of the trunks and laying them on the end of the couch. “She told me to show you her first act,” said the woman called Collins, and, throwing open another of the trunks, she indicated some of the costumes contained in it.